Salve
by Zymr
Summary: Jake looked up at him, eyes too large in his face, and Tom almost faltered." Pre-series


**Note: **A number of years before the series. Written for the **ka_verse **community on livejournal, for the prompt 'temper'.

This is a bit of a departure from my usual Jake and it's my first stab at Tom. I hope they're okay.

**Salve**

"Right." Tom said. "Right. Just to be clear…

Jake sighed.

"…you went and got that lip bloody and then fought with that Drake kid—all because he tried to pull Rachel's hair?"

Jake gave his brother a pleading look. "I was just going to tell him off! But Rachel swung at him first…_she_ hit _me_ by accident and they both went down and then I pulled her off and she kicked and got me right here…"

Both brothers grimaced, one at the memory, the other at the images it conjured.

Tom dabbed at the last of the bloodied part with his handkerchief, Jake twisting in his seat all the while. The younger boy looked curiously tall even like this, perched on their kitchen table, legs kicking impatient, clutching a pint of ice-cream like he was five again.

Tom wondered just when it was that Jake got big enough for his feet to reach the floor.

"And that gash near your eye?" Tom inspected it, wincing.

"Well. When Rachel pushed that idiot in the puddle, he…he called Marco a midget." Jake stared at him, unblinking.

"Hey." Tom reached up, tousling his brother's muddy hair. "_I_ call you midget, don't I?. It isn't worth-"

"No, no." Jake interrupted. "It's okay when you do. But Marco _hates_ being called stuff like that."

Tom sighed and dropped his arm, kept it lying across Jake's knees. "So, you went back to get Drake for it?"

Jake looked pained and stirred his ice cream into slush. "I was gonna walk away, honest! I pulled Rachel _off_—boy, she didn't like that, my arm still hurts."

Tom laughed as Jake hiked his shirt up.

"She's _insane_," Jake said. "And she's in trouble; did you see the thing Aunt Naomi's face did when she saw her?"

He looked down to find his older brother's face a near perfect match.

"Oh _geez_, kid," Tom muttered. His fingers brushed Jake's abdomen, his knuckles grazing a scattering of bruises on pale skin.

Jake barely flinched "Doesn't matter," he said easily.

Tom shot him a look.

"Doesn't _matter_," Jake insisted. "Cause see, Tom, Drake…he called Marco something. Something else, something bad."

"Yeah?" Tom said, gaze unmoving from the bruises. "Go on."

"He—" Jake gulped. "He said Marco was a stupid midget _spic_."

Jake let a pause go by, chanced a look back. Tom's eyes had gone narrow and very dark.

"No way."

That said it all for Jake. "Rachel and me just knew it was a bad name—I mean, a really bad name, like, like, worse than cussing."

"Okay, listen—" Tom exhaled in a swell and tugged gently at his brother's shirt. "Jake, nobody but an idiot should care if—if anyone's skin's darker than theirs, or if he doesn't look like they…think he should. It's _stupid_. "

Jake had dropped his spoon in a clatter, shades of his face playing between bewildered and outraged.

"Is that what sp—what it means? Marco just looks like…like Marco!"

"Right—it shouldn't mean anything," Tom said intensely. "The only thing it means is some people can be real jerks sometimes. All right?"

"Some kids," Jake muttered, fists clenching. "Yeah."

For Tom, this was the sad, hard part.

Jake fidgeted as his brother pulled himself up to sit beside him. "Not just kids." Tom said.

Jake looked up at him, eyes too large in his face. Tom almost faltered, but forged on. "Everyone. Some people can be that screwed up, Jake. It…it wasn't _kids_ who made that name up, see."

"…Oh." Jake's expression went tighter. And Tom clenched his jaw and thought, maybe that idiot Drake wasn't the only one who'd gotten a beating today.

He had to fight not to grip Jake by the shoulder, pull his brother tight against him, tell him the world was never that bad. No, it didn't work like that anymore. Jake learned too fast and too well; and Tom sure wouldn't change that, not for the world.

_Screw that._

Tom swore that he'd be there, for every bad turn his little brother took.

"So…" he said after a long silence. "Marco still doesn't know?"

"No. Don't know if I'll tell him." Jake poked at his ice cream glumly. "Rachel doesn't want me to. She kicked that idiot in the you-know-where, and he said maybe she liked Marco. You know." He made a sickened face. "As in, _liked_."

Tom was laughing before the sentence was finished. He snatched up a spoon, dug into Jake's ice cream pint. "Yeah, well he's Marco. He'll find out."

"And he'll know all about that—that name?" Jake's voice was sharp

Tom swallowed cold and flinched

"He'd hurt Drake worse than Rachel and me. And I wouldn't stop him." Jake scowled and kicked at thin air.

"Just watch his and Rachel's backs," Tom said quietly. "Just do that, all right? You tell _me_ if Drake does or says anything else."

The ice cream slush slurped and bubbled. Jake wiped his mouth with a messy hand. "Yeah. Okay."

A pause.

"…And you'd beat him up?"

Tom smiled. "Think I could take him?"

Jake snorted. "Yeah! Are you kidding?"

Tom was at once pained and awed by his shining look. More soberly, Jake's brother said, "D'you _want_ me to?"

"No," Jake conceded, sounding rueful. He raked his gaze over Tom. "You could. You wouldn't."

_You're right_, Tom thought, but really, he wasn't so sure.

Another laden pause and then Jake met his brother's eyes again. "You still gonna yell at me?"

Tom elbowed him. "Brat, you know I won't. Mom and Dad, though…"

Jake groaned and pushed out his swollen-red bottom lip.

"Come on…look at you! She'll go ballistic. He'll talk your ear off."

Jake gave a resigned sigh. "I'm still in trouble then."

"I'll back you up," Tom said, giving in and throwing an arm tight around Jake. He held his little brother's gaze. "If it were up to me? You never will be."

***


End file.
